Tony Gilroy opens up about his upcoming film ‘Behemoth’

Long before Tony Gilroy wrote “The Bourne Identity,” made “Michael Clayton” or created “Andor,” he wanted to be a musician. After playing guitar in a string of bands, Gilroy came to Los Angeles hoping to become a studio musician. A session with some real players quickly disabused him of that notion.

But once Gilroy entered filmmaking, his fascination with the scoring process, and the orchestras that record them, kept growing. By the time Gilroy was overseeing the scoring of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” at the famed Gary Martin Soundstage on the Sony Pictures lot, something started percolating.

“Those scoring sessions were incredibly intense,” said Gilroy. “The time pressure was great. A huge orchestra. I just sat there going: There has to be a movie here.”

Now there is. Gilroy’s “Behemoth!” premiered last weekend at the centerpiece of the New York Film Festival. Gilroy’s first film since the Star Wars series “Andor” concluded its acclaimed two-season run, “Behemoth!” was one of the festival’s most keenly awaited movies.

In the film, which Searchlight Pictures will release on Dec.4, Pedro Pascal stars as a perpetually on-the-run cellist and former prodigy who returns to Los Angeles to score films. His life is as messy as his playing is flawless. “Behemoth!” is a rigorously scripted, time-shifting character study in the mold of Gilroy’s 2007 masterpiece, “Michael Clayton,” and a resonant ode to the art of movie scoring. In an experimental gambit, Gilroy cast nine composers – dubbed the Behemoth! Collective – to fill the movie with music.

“I kinda had a vague idea of how I could gather enough musicians quickly before the authorities got involved,” a chuckling Gilroy said during an interview at Lincoln Centre. “We just said, ‘OK, everybody’s going to get exactly the same amount of money. ... We made a basic, early manifesto for what the rules would be. And it’s this utopian thing.” The alchemy of image and music remains a mysterious part of moviegoing to Gilroy, the oldest son in a filmmaking family. He points to the simplicity and luck that went into the score for the noir classic “The Third Man,” where director Carol Reed stumbled upon a zither player at a wine tavern. “Michael Clayton,” Gilroy said, initially rejected any music at all. He screened it half a dozen times naked, without a score, before something clicked.

“You pick the lock, you pick the frequency of what it is,” Gilroy said. “When we started on ‘Andor,’ I really felt like I knew a lot about it. And we got in there and got our butts kicked. That was a tutorial. Then it happened again in the second season. You just can’t stop learning this stuff. I’m not sure I’ll ever be done learning about it.”

Gilroy said he considers his six years working “Andor” to be “the most life-changing creative intensity you could ever have.” While it initially seemed an unlikely combination – one of film’s top writer-directors and one of Hollywood’s most tightly controlled franchises – Gilroy, a student of history, turned the “Rogue One” spinoff into a timely exploration of fascism and revolution.

“Behemoth!” was a new tune. “We were so swamped with politics and anger and dread of picking up the newspaper every day,” said Gilroy. “I really craved a sanctuary from that. I gave myself permission to hide in this movie for a year. I felt like I did enough, I said enough, I was angry enough. People who got the show really got it. I didn’t want to fight anymore. It was super pleasurable to not come home and put the news on, but put music on.”

But did those years on “Andor” give Gilroy any insight into our current politics? He immediately answered “yes” and then hesitated. “Man, do I really want to get into it?”

“I think a lack of alternative, charismatic, communicative leadership,” he said. “There’s been absolutely no one who has risen who’s given voice to what the majority of people want. Someone to stand up and charismatically message the (expletive) out of this, the way it should be.”

Associated Press